Abstract
IT has been argued (see for example ref. 1) that there is little or no reliable evidence for 11- or 22-yr cycles in meteorological time series, and that even if a significant spectral peak exists, the identified cycle may not maintain its phase and amplitude sufficiently to allow reliable prediction. To investigate this we have examined January temperature records for 19 stations in eastern North America. Our results show that: first, a pervasive 20-yr peak exists in the spectra of January temperatures in eastern Canada and the United States; secondly, the 20-yr oscillation was largely in phase over this region until approximately 1960; and thirdly, the predictability of this oscillation is, at best, only marginal.
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MOCK, S., HIBLER, W. The 20-yr oscillation in eastern North American temperature records. Nature 261, 484–486 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1038/261484a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/261484a0
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